A guy in my support group said something that really hit home for me. Silence is a prison, and the hardest part of recovery is finding your voice. He went on to explain what he meant, but I instantly knew. I have worked my tail off for three years, and still havenít found my voice.

The voice of the true Jeff was silenced when the faceless, nameless boy led me into the bushes. From that moment on, I had to measure everything I ever said. I couldnít just be myself any more, for fear of letting something slip. Because, I need to find my voice, I wanted to post my story now. Be warned, I have promised myself to be blunt and completely honest, so it could trigger.

When I began working on sexual addiction, I had no idea I was ever abused, let alone molested. I backed into it all while trying to heal. The later memories came easily, but as I searched for the roots of each of those, I found more.

In a group setting, I shared my earliest sexual memory. A playmate of mine Iíll just call J, was sitting in a swing beside me. Bored we were looking for something to do, that much I am sure of, though I donít remember the actual words we said. The next images I have are of us in the bushes, undressing, touching and mouthing each other. We were six at the time.

The group leader pointed out that children sometimes do the ĎIíll show me mine if youíll show me yoursí game, but that mouthing one another wasnít normally part of that. He asked were the idea came from, and I couldnít answer him.

After that session, I couldnít get it out of my mind. I began having flashes of something deeper and more guarded about six months ago. Until then, I thought I had things in the bag, and that I had overcome my problems. I was comfortable believing that something in life had made me a pervert, and that if I could control my sexual compulsion, I was healed. I had become good at controlling my thoughts and actions, and was proud of my new found health. Silly me.

I even married my long time roommate, and felt secure that the worst was over. My renewed relationship with God, an inner peace after having stopped my porn use, and gaining control over masturbation, left me feeling good about my future. I felt good enough to get pregnant with our son, and thought I had seen the worst.

One day early last year, I received an email from PRIDE, a workshop for sexual compulsion. I am always looking to do better, so I went to see what it was about, and started working through the exercises. To do their outlines, work out your goals and address your inner beliefs, you had to do some real soul searching. That was when I began feeling empty like something was missing in my picture of the world.

At first it was only a feeling, but I soon began having flashes of memory. Like snapshots, they werenít full memories, just images. One, I was kneeling with my face pressed into someoneís stomach. What filled my mouth wasnít womanly. Another was walking behind J and a tall blond boy, and feeling very afraid. Then there was one last one where J was bent over in front of me, and I had my nose to her ass. I distinctly hear laughing in the background, and I get this voice of, ĎI know a game we can play.í

Six months ago, I went from sober sex addict to survivor, and my world would never be the same. When I uncovered the actual molestation, I lost my identity and was left empty and alone. That is where I am now, and why I joined Male Survivors in the first place. I have concluded that I was comfortable being a sober addict, and that I liked owning up to the fact everything was my fault. When that illusion that had survived therapy and self-help fell, I was left without any sense of whom I was or where I was going. So here I am, sharing something that only a very select few have known before, in an attempt to find my voice again and share with my wife as well.

It is very foggy, but based on what I do recall there were several times when I was involved with this boy. The first seems to be only the two of us, but later on, he involved my friend J. He thought it was fun to make us do things to one another, and treated us like his personal sex toys. The worst part of it was, he didnít even get hard. I never remember him erect in any of my memories. It was like he thought it was some big joke or something. I am angry because he destroyed me, and didnít even get off on it!

He liked controlling and torturing us in small ways. Like the memory of sniffing Jís ass, I have others of catching her urine in my mouth and swallowing it. There are images of her doing the same, but I never recall him involved in that stuff. He might do it to us, but I donít remember him ever doing those nasty things.

After he lost interest in us, we continued playing at what he had shown us. That was the memory that I had recounted to my group. I had actually blocked out an unknown number of encounters with this boy. I believe that as I grew and understood that it was homosexual, I couldnít face it, so I just chose to forget it all.

J and I played sex games that we had no idea were sex for another few months. We moved away, and now in a new home, I soon made friends with another little girl. Iíll call her C. C and I had a normal friendship for a long time, until I was seven or eight in fact. I hadnít forgotten what happened, but I was too introverted and shy to initiate anything. One thing she liked to play was house. I was the dad and pretended to go to work, leaving her to clean the house and cook a pretend dinner. When I was preparing to leave on one pretend morning, she asked if I was going to kiss her goodbye. That kiss was all it took, and the next thing I knew, I was revealing the games I knew, and we were at it.

I could go into all the sexual compulsion and addiction that came over the rest of my life, but it is too long to list. I want to focus on where the abuse fits into my life. As a teen, I remembered the encounters with J, C and another one to come named M, but I had blocked out the memories of the boy. So I only remember myself victimizing all these girls, and acting out with cross-dressing, streaking, flashing and other things. I came to see myself as perverted and sick, never realizing where it had all began. Instead of placing blame where it belonged, I blamed and hated myself.

When we moved away from M, I had been having sex almost every day. I was only thirteen, and couldnít handle the loss. It sent me into depression, and I took up masturbation to deal with need for sexual release. A bad combo from the start, I felt bad, so I masturbated to feel good. Then I felt even more ashamed and perverted, so I sank back down and would act out to feel good again. Some say sex canít be an addiction, but that sure sounds like one to me.

I began hating myself, so it was easy to do vile, hurtful things. Somewhere, I got the bright idea that if I made sex painful or unpleasant, I wouldnít want to do it. I began masturbating in ways that hurt me in some way, either physically or emotionally. Humping a fallen tree until I bled, or forcing myself to sniff a panty liner, things like that. I have read many cases of attempted suicide or cutting, but my way was as sexual as everything else. The funny thing was that my mind soon blurred the lines between pain and pleasure. I found it all a very exciting extension of sex.

In such a state, my controlling father seemed like a monster. He would go off on rants where he brought me to tears with mere words. I tried to please him, to please everyone in the world, but naturally I couldnít. My focus went from self, to pleasing and doing what everyone else wanted. I became withdrawn and passive, and had lost all ability to stand up for my wants and needs.

To please the world, I became a good athlete. I guess I like it too, for the escape maybe, but my real motive was to appease my father, and look good to the world. The same goes for my excellent grades and hard work ethic. When I reviewed my life after learning of the abuse, it seemed like every part of it had been tainted somehow. Even things I had always taken pride in came into question. Was it really me doing it, or was it a front to hide my addiction?As late as last month when I went for a vasectomy, I was acting out of abuse. Without a voice to speak my mind, I objected at first, but when it was headed for conflict, I gave in. Once more I did what was expected of me, put my concerns and feelings aside, and took the life-altering surgery. I have forever sterilized myself despite being confused and lost, and all to avoid conflict that I have come to hate so. The abuse has made it impossible for me to be my true self, and I have a whole lot of work to do. That is a hard pill to swallow after feeling recovered enough to get married and have a baby. I went from almost completely happy to total mess with the memory of being abused.

As I write this, it is my intent to share it with my wife, as well as with you all. I am trying to find that voice and begin healing, so wish me luck. Facing my wife with this will be much harder than posting it here where no one knows me from Adam.

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The world is a dangerous place, not because of those that are evil, but because of those who do nothing about them- Albert Einstein

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